Abstract
The statistical predictability of wind speed using Gaussian predictors, relative to the predictability of orthogonal vector wind components, is considered. With the assumption that the vector wind components are Gaussian, analytic expressions for the correlation-based wind speed prediction skill are obtained in terms of the prediction skills of the vector wind components and their statistical moments. It is shown that
at least one of the vector wind components is generally better predicted than the wind speed (often much more so);
wind speed predictions constructed from the predictions of vector wind components are more skillful than direct wind speed predictions; and
the linear predictability of wind speed (relative to that of the vector wind components) decreases as the variability in the vector wind increases relative to the mean.
These idealized model results are shown to be broadly consistent with linear predictive skills assessed using observed sea surface wind from the SeaWinds scatterometer. Biases in the model predictions are shown to be related to the degree to which vector wind variations are non-Gaussian.
